Get Infected

GameCore is CBSNews.com's gaming column written by William Vitka. Infected is an over-the-top 3rd person tongue-in-cheek gore fest for the PSP that finally provides Playstation Portable users with an original game and not some weak rehash of a PSOne title.

The story is simple: You are Officer Stevens, a cop working for the New York Biohazard Team. It's three weeks before Christmas and a virus that turns anyone infected into a flesh eating psychopathic zombie is spreading through the city. The only way to save New Yorkers is to pump the viral horrors full of lead and splat them with your blood.

To paraphrase the game: Worst shopping season ever.

Well, maybe for the innocent civilians, but it's one fantastic bloodbath after another for you.

The zombies in Infected aren't quite zombies in the Romero "Night of the Living Dead" sense. They're more like the abominations in Peter Jackson's pre-"Lord Of The Rings" flesh and entrails fiesta "Braindead."

They're peppy jerks. They can jump and they can mutate. Aside from the standard zombie tactic of whacking you repeatedly and biting, they can also spew green goo that the game describes as some kind of pus concoction.

But you've got plenty of weapons on your side: pistols, shotguns, machine guns, a rocket launcher and upgrades like firebombs and "street cleaners" that create small scale nuclear blasts. Oh, how the cannibal freaks fly.

Another arsenal addition is the special viral gun filled with your blood. Turns out you're somehow immune to the whole "Whoops, I've become a friggin' zombie" thing. Once enough holes are put into the Infected with ballistic weapons, you can discharge a shot of hemoglobin and burst the otherwise unkillable monsters like ripe watermelons.

Hygienic, no. Fun, yes.

You can also trigger special chain reactions that take out several flesh eaters at once. This not only creates an entertaining level of gore, but also rewards you with extra points, health refills, shields and other special items. It is very much worth your while to cause as much carnage as possible.

The graphics are good and the game is smooth. The only noticeable slowdown is when the screen gets filled, and I mean filled, with zombies and exploding carcasses.